The New Medical Sociology: Social Forms of Health and Illness

The author, Bryan Turner, examines how macroprocesses like globalization, risk, economic deregulation, andtechnological change shape personal experiences of health and illness.Addressing key topics in contemporary sociology such as the body,power, and knowledge, Turner sets out to rethink medical sociology asan exciting perspective on the principal transformations of modernsociety.

In this broad historical and sociological work, Turner asks and answershow economic changes of recent decades have undermined both socialcohesion and the conditions that promote good health. He explores themacro-level importance of social capital (people's involvement orinvestments in society), inequality, and citizenship rights in hisexplanation of health and illness in modern societies, and examines atthe micro level embodiment (our relationship to our own bodies) innarratives of illness.

The New Medical Sociology is part of the Contemporary Societies series.

About the author (2004)

Bryan S. Turner is professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology at Cambridge University in England and a professorial fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. His previous publications include The Body and Society (1984), Medical Power and Social Knowledge (1987) and Regulating Bodies (1992). He is the joint editor with Mike Featherstone of the journal Body & Society. He teaches medical sociology and the sociology of human rights at Cambridge. He is currently editing the Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology (with Craig Calhoun and Chris Rojek) and the International Handbook of Sociology. He is also doing research on rights, learning disabilities, and social inclusion.